Long Itchington To Rowington

Friday May 4th

Long Itchington to Warwick

A bright and sunny morning took us  to Bascote staircase lock,  where the winding mechanism on the paddle on thebott8m gates was very stiff. Little did we know at this stage that this would be the same problem on the following 10 locks. By the time we reached  Radford Bottom Lock Jenny's arms were aching. It had been a long decent. Leamington Spa  gave us a  shopping stop at Morrisons and Lidl just a short way on. We took the decision to carry on to through the outskirts of Warwick where we  moored  for the night at the top of Warwick Locks,  which just happens to be opposite  The Cape of Good Hope, a canal side pub where we just had to sample some of their local brew. The first of this trip!

Beautiful primoses,  my dear mum's favourite

Saturday 5th May

A beautiful sunny start to the day, which would take us up the notorious Hatton Flight of 21 locks. We were hoping to share the locks with another boat but but sadly after waiting a while no boat appeared so we set off up the flight. The sun was shining, it started to get very warm, first Sid changed into his shorts then Jenny also donned her shorts and we made steady progress up the locks. The winding gear on this flight is much easier than all the previous locks on the Grand Union.

Hatton bottom lock

Hatton flight - ' The Stairway to Heaven'

Nearing the top of the flight with Warwick in the background 

At about the half way mark a CRT volunteer who was helping a hire boat down the locks together with a colleague left the descending boat and assigned himself to help us up the rest of the flight. And very welcome help it was too. Thank you Keith and all CRT volunteers.

Our day ended on a beautiful mooring and we both had a pleasant afternoon in the glorious warm sunshine.